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Where Are They Now Wednesdays: Neel Vasavada

January 25, 2012 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

It has been 11 years since Neel Vasavada participated in Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTCs) but it feels like just yesterday he was the business and HEV team leader for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Futurecar and FutureTruck teams.

Vasavada has always had an interest in vehicles. Growing up with a racing background, he worked on various Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) road racing teams throughout high school.  When he was accepted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he immediately became involved in hybrid electric vehicle development and AVTCs.

“I must say, my favorite moment was winning the 1999 Futurecar Challenge by 300 points over the next competitor,” he said. “My least favorite moment was graduating and having to go to the real world.”

Upon graduation, Vasavada went to work for EFI Technology, a leading supplier of engine management and data acquisition systems. In 2003, he decided he wanted a change and founded Apex Speed Technology.

As founder and president of Apex Speed Technology, one of the largest suppliers of custom control, data logging and wiring harness systems for professional motorsports, high-end custom vehicles and R&D markets, Vasavada gets to witness first-hand the impact young engineers have on today’s vehicle technology.

“Some of the most successful engineers I know combine a technical background with the ability to work with their hands in the field,” he said, “and AVTCs teach this.”

Despite living 2,000 miles away from Wisconsin, Vasavada stays in touch with some of his former AVTC teammates. “The friendships I made during those days have endured,” he said. “I just spent New Year’s with our old electrical group leader!”

Today, Vasavada lives in Venice Beach with his wife and 14-month old son, in whom he tries to instill Wisconsin engineer ‘gumption’.  He appreciates what AVTCs have taught him and hopes he stays in contact with his former teammates for many years to come.

“AVTCs gave me a lot of practice working in the field of competitive environments,” he said. “I sometimes feel like my current career is a DOE AVTC.”

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Where Are They Now Wednesdays: Jonathan Butcher

November 16, 2011 in EcoCAR 2 News by ggguestuser | No comments

The moment Jonathan Butcher attended an outreach event at the University of Wisconsin as a high school senior, he knew he wanted to become involved in Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTC).

“I was totally hooked. I said, ‘This is for me. This is what I want to do,’” says Butcher, an HEV controls engineer for Ford Motor Company.

Butcher’s early interest in electric vehicles was influenced by his high school shop teacher, who built his own electric car. It seemed like the beginning of a new wave of technology and he wanted to be a part of it.

Upon entering the University of Wisconsin, Butcher joined the FutureCar team as the mechanical team leader. His group focused on fabrication, new parts, and packaging and fixing problems with the vehicle. Butcher believes early exposure to developing technologies in the competition gave him an edge in the job market.

The Wisconsin FutureCar Jonathan worked on

“It was relatively new,” he says, “so someone who had just worked on it for a year or two had just as much experience as someone who had done it as their full-time job.”

Butcher says his involvement with FuturCar was the single most important activity during his college career. Not only did it give him experience working on a large, complex project comparable to real-world engineering projects, it taught him a skill set that can’t be taught in a classroom.

“Skills like teamwork, leadership, goal-setting, time-management and project management are addressed  in college courses, but very few experiences really test students on these invaluable skills,” Butcher says.

In many ways, Butcher’s current job reflects the same work he did during the FutureCar competition. Determining the problems in the vehicles, especially software issues, remains a major focus of his work. Through data collection and evaluation, he can try to optimize certain attributes, such as fuel economy or durability.

Every few months, Ford releases new and improved software, but Butcher says that the most challenging part of the job is trying to balance the requests and needs of the different groups at Ford. For example, the emissions team may want to reduce the number of times they start and stop the engine while the fuel economy team may want to increase this number. All the while, he needs to maintain the basic components of the vehicle, such as safety and reliability.

As EcoCAR 2 teams develop their vehicle designs, Butcher encourages them to allocate enough time for testing. He says it’s important to have a plan that is ambitious, but not so aggressive that it affects the ability of the car to function properly.

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